In the Sand
by english5672
Summary: Canon/ Annie Cresta's life in District 4 has largely revolved around the ocean, with most of her defining moments taking place in the sand.


**Hello, everyone! This is a one-shot that actually popped in my head a couple months ago, but initially I ignored it and forgot to write it down. I was at the beach about a month ago and it popped in my head, and I knew I had to write it down. I wanted to explore what made Annie that "mad girl from District 4," surely she wasn't always "mad." More importantly, what does "mad" mean to Annie and how does it shape her life. I deal with my own anxiety issues and I image that Annie does too, and I wanted to delve into her character and see who she really was. I hope that I do Annie justice. **

**This is dedicated to pookieh and soamazinghere, who supported me when I sent them ridiculously long emails about this project I had in mind. Thank you ladies, for your edits and for helping me make this story everything I wanted it to be. You both are the best. **

**Find me at tumblr at english1823.**

_**I do not own The Hunger Games.**_

**Five Years Old**

Today is my first day of school. Last week my father took me to the tailor's wife to get a brand new dress for today. I was so excited that my father allowed me to get a big girl dress from the seamstress to wear on the first day, and I loved the idea of being a big girl in class. But what I'm _really_ excited for are swimming lessons. I love going for walks along the beach with my father, feeling the warm sand in between my toes, and I know that as much as I love the sand, I'll love the water even more. District 4 boarders the ocean and it is expected that almost everyone in the district will work with the sea in some way at some point in time, which makes swimming lessons an essential part of our education.

The first few days of school are fun but forgettable, and I spend most of them waiting to jump into the training pool. Finally, the day arrives when it's time for us to don our swimsuits for our first swimming lesson. Our teacher, Miss Scarlett, lines us up against the edge of the pool and tells us to jump in. We quickly learn to tread water so we don't drown.

I jump in the pool and am immediately assaulted by the freezing cold water. The water goes up my nose, the chlorine stings my eyes while my lungs scream for air. Instinctively, my limbs kick out and my head breaks the surface. I cough and sputter as an instructor gently guides me to the wall so I can hook an arm over the edge to catch my breath.

Swimming is _hard._

**Eight Years Old**

"Come on, Annie, it's alright."

Today is Sunday. I don't have school and my father isn't out on a boat trying to catch fish. Instead, we're at the beach and he's teaching me about the ocean.

"Relax your body, let the waves gently lift you."

The water is up to my shoulders and it's a cloudy, surprisingly cool July day. By now I've become a proficient swimmer at school, but every time I go into the ocean the waves crash into my chest and face, leaving me breathless and winded. "Papa, this is hard," I whine.

"Everything worth learning is hard, Annie." He takes my hand. "Now, when the waves come, let them gently lift you off the ground."

I'm skeptical, but with the comfort of my father's hand around mine, I relax. When the wave approaches I lightly jump and twist my body to the side, allowing my shoulder to receive the brunt of the impact. My body lifts with the wave, feeling as though I'm flying or weightlessly floating. I lightly touch back down to the ocean floor again and wiggle my toes into the sand. "I did it!"

My father beams at me. "You did!"

We stay that way for a while, letting our bodies move with the waves and I feel a calmness that I've never felt before. My father begins to pull me out a little further.

"Wait, why are we going out farther?"

"These are small waves, you need to learn how to handle the big waves. You'll drown someday if you don't." He points to where the larger waves are cresting. "Those waves, the big ones, are too powerful for you to ride, so you'll have to swim under them."

My eyes widen in alarm. "That doesn't make any sense, why would we go into them? Shouldn't we swim away?"

"No, I told you before, you have to go with the waves, not against them. Underneath the swell is a calm spot where you can swim under. You'll feel the water rush above you, but you'll be safe underneath. If you try to fight against it, you'll lose. You'll get tired and you'll either be stuck out at sea, or beat up and tossed back to shore."

I'm skeptical, but allow him to pull me further. When the big waves come, he tells me to plug my nose and he drags me under with him. He's right. I can feel the swell above me, but I'm safe below it. We surface and I notice that the sky has gotten slightly cloudier than when we first came out, but the grey sky darkens the water, and I think it looks beautiful and mysterious. I'm staring, which means I'm caught off guard when my father pulls me under the water with him again.

My lack of attention left my hand slack within his, which allowed the swell to pull me out of his reach. The salty water is in my nose and eyes and I can't breathe. I'm caught in the wave, my body twisting, somersaulting into the sand relentlessly. My lungs are on fire and every time my body hits the sand I cringe. My limbs are flailing and I don't even know which way is up, my head can't crest the surface. I feel like lead, like I can't move, but then I feel something wrap around my torso and at first I think it's seaweed, but then it pulls me up and I feel my body break the surface. I'm dazed, but I start coughing violently, my father slapping my back, trying to get the water from my lungs.

When I begin breathing normally I look up at my father and see his dark hair disheveled, his green eyes shining and worried. "Oh, Annie, are you okay? Come on, there's a storm brewing, we need to get out of here."

He drags me back to shore, my body still too weak to function on it's own. We collapse into the sand together. There is sand in my bathing suit and hair, on every inch of my skin, but I don't care. I'm just happy to be on it. My throat burns from the salt water and I blearily blink my eyes open. "Your hand slipped out of mine and for a moment I didn't know where you were. I've never been that scared before," my father tells me as he hugs me close to him. I nod and he gathers me into his arms before he stands up and begins to walk back to our home.

He shakes his head and laughs humorlessly. "I tell you, Annie, if you can survive that, you can survive anything."

**Ten Years Old**

In District 4 when a child turns ten they enter the special training school. It's separate from the younger school because they teach you more about fishing and swimming, but really, it's preparation in case you get reaped. If there is a particularly strong student that year, they will be encouraged to volunteer, but the reaping is random, of course, and even the best students aren't too enthused at the idea of voluntarily entering the Games.

The first few weeks we spend almost entirely in the water, practicing different swimming strokes, learning how to escape different animals, and learning about the tides. It's exhausting and every day during lunch I collapse into the sand, grateful for a break from the sea.

**Sixteen Years Old**

Today is the reaping. I stand in a crowd of other girls my age, the hot sun beating down on our faces, and I don't know if I'm sweating from the heat or from nerves. I tell myself that there are hundreds of girls my age, it won't be me that's chosen, it just won't be.

But it is me. My name is called and on shaking legs, I walk to the stage. No one volunteers for me. Every year the academy chooses a select few girls to train to enter the Games, but if they aren't ready by the reaping, it is agreed that they won't volunteer. This year the academy decided that the girls they are seriously training aren't ready yet, so no one will come and take my place. I look out on the crowd and see girls that are bigger, stronger, and better prepared than I am. They avoid my eyes. They won't disobey. I am alone.

The wind blows a faint breeze around me, a quiet whisper. I close my eyes and soak it in, because this is probably the last sea breeze I'll ever feel. Before I have to turn into the Justice Building, I look to the ocean one last time.

* * *

Because let's face it, it _will_ be my last time.

I'm hiding in a tree. My entire body is shaking, so I have to hold tightly to the trunk. I have no idea what day it is. All I know is that Aidan is dead and I watched that girl from District 2 behead him as if it was nothing. I close my eyes and I see his blood on the ground. If I touch my shirt, I can feel the splotches of his dried blood crusted on me. I can still smell it.

There have been canons since then, but I've barely registered them. I don't think anyone even knows I'm up in this tree, so here I'll stay. I know that I've been up here for days, but all I can think about is the sound of Aidan screaming before he was beheaded, the sight of his blood on my body, the coppery smell in the air. I close my eyes and cover my ears, trying to silence the noise in my head, but it's no use, nothing works. Giving up, I remove my hands from my head and allow myself to take in the sounds around me. In the distance, I hear a rumbling. This draws me out of the world I've been hiding in ever since Aidan's death. I look to the large dam that has been to my right ever since I climbed this tree. It's shaking.

I watch, frozen in my spot, as the dam breaks. That's when the screams start. Water begins to fill the arena and I watch as it hits the sandy area at the center, swallowing the cornucopia and creating a sandy sludge. I still have a minute or two before the sludge and water reaches me, so I stand on the branch and brace myself against the trunk. When the water reaches my waist, I let go of the trunk and begin to swim. The knapsack on my back is weighing me down, so I quickly discard it. The sand is all around me, sticking to every inch of my body. It's dirty and disgusting, and nothing like the warm, light sand at home. I swim as far away from the cornucopia and sand sludge as I can, hoping to find an area where the water is clear.

I ride the waves, letting them crest over me when they need to. By now I can hold my breath for over a minute at a time, so these mutt waves (because no waves I've ever seen ebb and flow like these do) don't overcome me. When I'm under the water, I begin to think about the other tributes. I've been swimming almost every day for eleven years, but have any of them ever seen a large body of water before? Then it hits me: if they drown before I tire out, I may actually have a shot at winning.

When the rushing water over my head calms, I break the surface to gulp down some air. I hear shouts. I look to my left and about a half mile away I see three heads bobbing in the water. They're screaming, but I don't know why. I feel a light pulling and allow the water to push my body where it wants. I remember being a little girl and hearing my father say, "If you try to fight against it, you'll lose," so I let my body move with the waves, allowing me to save my strength. The screaming grows louder and when I look up again I can understand why. There's a rip tide.

I watch as they try to fight against the waves, but I know that they'll never win that way, especially since it looks like they're having a difficult time just staying afloat. Their heads go under one by one and suddenly the rip tide expands exponentially, and I feel myself getting dragged into it.

Instead of fighting, I let it pull me, trying to move with it. My arms and legs are growing weak and all I can hear is the water rushing around me. I try to keep my breathing steady, but it's proving more and more difficult. Looking around, I try to find a tree or something to grab hold of and brace myself against, but it's no use. There's nothing but water. As I begin to lose hope, a series of small booms cracks through the air.

The pull from the rip tide suddenly stops. I'm startled at the feeling of complete stillness after the constant movement and look around me.

"Ladies and Gentleman, the winner of the Sixty-Ninth Hunger Games, Annie Cresta!"

I must not have heard the other canons while I was swimming, or perhaps they sounded while I was underwater, but that doesn't matter now. All that matters now is the hovercraft above me and the ladder extending down for me to grab onto.

I can't believe I did it. I won.

**Sixteen Years Old, Six Months Later**

There's a light rapping on my bathroom door. "Annie, it's time."

Before getting up to answer the door, I glance at myself in the mirror and grimace. Mags looks at me with sympathetic eyes.

"Come now, dear, it'll be over soon. The others are waiting on the beach." She leads me downstairs to the beach where I see a camera crew, my prep team, and Finnick gathered.

It's time for my Victory Tour. To be honest, I barely remember the last six months. I've spent most of the days curled up on my couch in my new home in Victor's Village, trying to fight the panic attacks and constant, suffocating sadness that overwhelms me. The terror I felt in the arena has followed me home, changing me, causing me to be trapped in my own head, where the arena never ends and time is meaningless. It doesn't matter how many days or hours pass me by, because the darkness always finds me. It whispers in my ear, telling me that my father is going to die, that I'm going to die, that if I open my eyes, I'll see Aidan's mangled body at my feet and I'll smell his blood on my skin again.

"Annie?" It's Finnick. He shakes my shoulder gently, letting me know that I've spaced out again. I smile slightly and move over to the sand, letting the camera crew position me.

I wasn't supposed to leave for my tour until tomorrow, so I thought I had one last full day to rest in my own home, before having to relive the horrors of my games. Instead, my prep team came knocking on my front door this morning, telling me that it was time for my pre-tour photo shoot.

As if the districts don't already know who I am. I'm the girl who lived because their children died. They get to have their towns plastered with my images, have to welcome me, cheer for me, while they silently wish that I were dead. That their own children were alive instead of me.

And of course I'm not wearing the simple red one-piece bathing suits we usually wear around District 4. No, I'm wearing some skimpy two-piece jeweled thing that barely covers my breasts and shows off half of my rear.

My prep team is 'oohing' and 'ahhing' over how I look, standing in front of the tides or kneeling on the sand, my legs spread, making me look much more provocative than I've ever felt before in my life. I see Finnick and Mags standing in the background, watching me closely. Mags won't be allowed to join me on the tour, but Finnick never gets to miss a chance to visit the Capitol so he will be escorting me; never mind the fact that he didn't even directly mentor me while I was in the Training Center.

"Good job, Annie. Shall we change outfits now?" the photographer asks.

My prep team descends upon me and before I can say anything at all, I'm stripped completely naked. "Alright, Annie, these are the nude ones. Get in the water and get all wet," he grins as if he's said something funny. "Then roll around in the sand."

Apparently my outfit is nothing but sand. But I obey, because I know I have to. Finnick makes eye contact with me and I am so incredibly grateful to see that he keeps his eyes trained on mine, refusing to look at my naked body. I'm surprised because I know that for the past three years, every time he's been in the Capitol he has always had lovers hanging off his arms. He can't be so pure as to be embarrassed by my naked form, can he? He's not even looking at me at all now. Instead, he's examining his fingernails. Why is that?

I lay in the sand with my legs crossed so that I'm not completely exposed. The lights of the camera flash in my eyes. I retreat back into my own world to tune them all out.

**Seventeen Years Old**

It's nighttime. I sit out here alone in the sand, watching the waves roll in as the tears roll down my cheeks. There's no one left to care. Last week my father's ship was lost at sea. Yesterday five men from his crew returned to shore. My father was not among them.

I'm still sniffling when he comes to sit next to me. Finnick sighs heavily before leaning into me, whispering in my ear. "Winning the Games doesn't mean we're free. It's a lifetime of performing for Snow and the Capitol, just trying not to get punished. As far as he's concerned, your performances haven't been up to par."

I think back on my "performance" over the past few months.

At the end of my Victory Tour, I was presented to the Capitol, its citizens ready for a celebration. My first dance in the President's grand ballroom was with President Snow himself. His puffy lips smiled sinisterly at me. "You're such a pretty girl, Miss Cresta. The Capitol is simply smitten with you." When the dance ended he released me, but reached up to caress my hair. "Such a pretty girl."

That night I had a "date" with a wealthy, middle-aged man with purple skin, and hair all over his body. He tied me to the bed and pushed into me over and over again. I actually don't remember much of that night, because as soon as my dress hit the floor, I retreated into my own world to wait out the night out, trying to tune out the sound of his grunts in my ear. He must have slipped me something, because the next thing I knew I was waking up in the fetal position, screaming my head off. The man slapped me and told me I was the worst he'd ever had.

Six months later, when it was time for me to mentor my first tribute, a group of five Capitol socialites asked Finnick and me to join them that night for dinner. We never ate. Finnick tried to help me the best he could, bringing most of their attention to him and his body, and I watched as they lavished him with their hands and their mouths. When our eyes met, his were filled with a mixture of pity and sadness. I understood then what I had not understood six months prior. Finnick's lovers were not his lovers at all.

The memory of that night was a blur of sounds and movements and feelings. I know that at some point I had sex with every person in that room, including Finnick. They liked watching Finnick and me together, touching and kissing, sucking and squeezing.

Now that we're here, sitting side by side on the sand, he doesn't try to touch me, not even to comfort me. I don't think he can bring himself to.

"Ships get lost at sea all the time," I respond, refusing to believe what he's implying. That my father's disappearance wasn't an accident.

"Sometimes."

I sigh, my cheeks still wet with tears, and dig my toes into the sand, trying to feel something other than the overwhelming sadness that fills my chest.

**Eighteen Years Old**

It's nighttime. I want to swim. The strip of beach next to Victor's Village is private and only for the use of the Victors. It's dark out, but I know he can see me.

I walk purposefully into the water, but only up to my waist. I wait for him to follow.

"Annie," a quiet voice says behind me.

When he reaches me, I allow myself to turn towards him. I see his face, so full of sorrow, his green eyes full of defeat. I reach for his hand.

"You know I understand," I murmur. "You can talk about it if you need to."

"That doesn't make it any easier," he says as he squeezes my hand.

I nod my head.

"I don't want to upset you or make you have another panic attack," he admits.

"It's okay, I'll stop you if I need to."

He nods before he launches into it. He's just returned from another stay at the Capitol, mentoring for this year's games. I wasn't asked to mentor this year, but it's actually a relief. I still had to have the television on for the mandatory viewings, but in the comfort of my own home I was able to cover my ears and shut my eyes, blocking at least some of the horrors that played out on the screen.

Finnick tells me about his "dates" and mentoring the boy and girl from our district. When he gets to their deaths, I can't stand it anymore and instinctually lift my hands up to my ears to cover them, squeezing my eyes shut. Out of sight, out of mind.

Immediately, he stops talking. He gently reaches up to pull my hands from my ears. "Sorry," he says sadly.

My heart rate begins to slow as I take deep calming breaths. "Me too."

**Nineteen Years Old**

We sit on the sand, again. Side by side. This time, however, his arms are wrapped tightly around me, my body leaning against his.

"I love you," he whispers in my ear. I look at him like he's crazy.

"That's the dumbest thing I've ever heard you say."

He shakes his head. "No, it's true. I didn't get it at first, but now I do. Being a victor with you hasn't been enough, being your friend hasn't been enough. None of it is enough."

The last couple of months have brought a shift in our relationship. We're definitely beyond friendship, but we definitely not in a relationship. We haven't even kissed or touched intimately. Not on our own terms at least, and both of us are too skittish to rush this. It's the only real thing either of us has in our lives.

I stand up and reach out my hand to him. He gives me a quizzical look before taking my offer and standing next to me. It's nighttime, so I don't have to worry about anyone seeing me when I lift my shirt over my head and begin to undo my pants.

"Annie, what are you doing?"

"Going for a swim," I say simply before heading out to the water. It's cold outside and the water is freezing, but I don't care. I hear the soft sound of his clothes hitting the sand.

He strides up to me. "Together?" He asks as he extends his hand.

"Together," I respond, taking his hand as we march out into the ocean.

We both shudder when the water hits us, but we continue on anyway. When the water is at our shoulders, I turn to him. Slowly, I swim over to him, resting my hands on his shoulders. His eyes widen in the moonlight.

I'm nervous, but lean forward regardless and kiss him on the lips. My first real kiss. Not because I have to or because other people want to watch me, but because I want to kiss and be kissed. It's tentative at first, but soon our confidence grows. Our tongues meld together and I'm pressed against his chest, his arms wrapped tightly around my waist. He breaks our kiss and rests his forehead against mine.

"That was my first kiss," he says. "The only one that I did for me, not because of Snow." He leans in and softly kisses me again. "How did you do this?"

"What?"

"Make me fall for you. You came out of nowhere, Annie. You were just supposed to be some girl that I mentored…" he trails off. "You realize how bad this will be when Snow finds out, right? How heartbreaking it will be the next time I have to go to the Capitol?"

I know he's spoken to me, but his words don't register. I've been too busy staring at him, watching his eyes, how they shine when he speaks.

"Most of Panem thinks you're the mad one, but I think I might be the one who's mad." He begins to cry. "What if he takes you away too?"

I tilt his face up to look me in the eye. I rise up onto the balls of my feet, sinking slightly into the sand below me. The water is so calm, lightly pushing us with its ebbs and flows. I consider what Finnick has told me and I know it must look like I've spaced out again, but I know he understands. He understands better than anyone.

I cock my head to the side. "I love you, too, you know." It's the only thing I can think to say.

Finnick's eyes light up in a way that I know the Capitol will never see. They will never understand this Finnick, the one whose grin stretches so perfectly across his face as he beams at me. I can't help but return the look and when he leans in to kiss me, there is no hesitancy. I lightly jump up so my legs are wrapped around his torso, my feet lifted from the sand.

And I've never felt so free.


End file.
